


Matters of Agency

by samidha



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Multi, Succubi & Incubi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-29
Updated: 2008-08-29
Packaged: 2018-12-04 13:46:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11556459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samidha/pseuds/samidha
Summary: Sam is grieving Jessica's death and attracts the attention of hellspawn. Again. Dean has to save him somehow. Written on request/to a prompt.





	Matters of Agency

Sam jerks awake to the steady thrum of the Impala moving down the highway.

Dean just looks at him, doesn’t say anything, because they both know about Sam’s nightmares since the fire and there’s no pretending they don’t. Sam needs his brother to look away, let it go, but he doesn’t. He just keeps watching. Waiting.

Sam clears his throat and Dean gives the slightest nod. He shifts his focus pointedly to the road.

*~*~*

Sam doesn’t want to sleep, maybe not ever again, but Jess is the only thing he can think about whether he’s awake or asleep and sometimes he just slips between the two.

Smoke. Smoke and heat. The apartment full of thick smoke that turns the air thick like cream, colored with red and sulfur-yellow and shifting greys. He’s seen this for so many nights now he knows it’s a dream, but he can’t pull free all the same. That would make it easy. It wouldn’t be fair.

He lets himself sink down, because there was no coming up. This dreamscape has been home for so many nights now that it’s easy to just fall into it.

He sees her—Jess, oh, God, Jessica—and his brain just completely short-circuits, even in all the smoke and the rotten egg smell. It doesn’t matter. She’s here, and he is hers. There is nothing else.

She moves so fast, putting one of her perfect hands up to his chest and he doesn’t resist, just falls back against the bed and lets her follow him, ripping his jeans down and straddling his hips. She seems as hungry as he is and he has to push away that thought, of Jess somewhere missing him, aching as bad as Sam does every hour of every day, because that right there will just crumble him to dust. It will end him.

He realizes she’s watching him, just that, and he looks up at her with a question in his eyes before she smiles.

“Say you want me,” she says, and he shivers, he’s crying, and it could be the smoke but really he knows it’s because, God. Jess.

“You know I do. You know. Don’t you?”

How can she smile like that if she doesn’t know?

“Say it.”

“Of course. Of course I do. Please. Please.”

She smiles so wide, Sam’s not sure he’s ever seen her like it before, and then she’s on him and it’s heat, it’s fire, being inside her and he feels like he’s going to just lose it right now but somehow he doesn’t. They move together like they could be inside the same skin and it’s just fire and Jess forever and ever.

When it’s over, he’s shaky and aching all over and he doesn’t remember it being like this, not ever. She slips off of him and cradles him in her arms and nibbles into his neck, his shoulder, and if he’s surprised at the pain of that it’s only in the dimmest way.

“Mine,” she says smokily, and he smiles, because she knows now.

This time, the worst part of it is when he wakes up, and he remembers Jess is gone, gone forever, and all he wants to do is go back.

*~*~*

Dean watches him like he expects Sam to just shake apart in a million tiny shards of himself any second. Sam says nothing, just lets it happen because it’s Dean and there’s no stopping him from being a mother hen when he’s decided that’s what’s needed. He’s been away four years, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know the score with his brother.

They’re in Lake Manitoc, and Sam’s glad when it’s clear Dean’s going to be the front-man on this case. He’s worn down. Dad’s missing—really missing, and maybe running from them. Sam wonders how it would be if he wasn’t here. Of course, it’s stupid to think their dad actually knows he’s with Dean, but even still. Dad told him to stay gone, and Sam can’t help but think that their father wouldn’t do this to Dean on his own. If he says anything, though, Dean will just stare at him harder, and Sam’s not sure he can handle this getting worse. He’s barely eating, barely breathing as it is. His body aches with lack of sleep and he’s got to keep moving, got to be enough backup for Dean on the hunt.

He drifts into little cat naps in the Impala when he shouldn’t, and she’s there. Jesus. He shouldn’t want this, should be fighting it—the part of him that still holds onto all his hunter instincts knows that, but it’s Jess.

Dean shakes him awake and Sam can’t hold back a glare. His head hurts like a son of a bitch, and Dean won’t fucking leave him alone, and Sam isn’t like him. He can’t do this right now, he just can’t, because when he closes his eyes she’s there and here there are only people dying. More people. Dean lost Mom twenty-two years ago but Jess has only been gone a matter of months and this is just too much. He can’t keep trying to push through the fog and do this damn job. It’s too much. Sam just can’t.

Dean’s back to staring at him, but this time he’s got this glint in his eye, like he’d get sometimes over his hunting notes or Dad’s journal. “Jesus, Sam,” he says, and even though when Sam fell asleep they were looking for this yellow house Lucas drew, Sam knows when he turns the Impala at the next intersection and the tires squeal that they’re headed back to the motel. Dean’s jaw is hard like Dad’s used to get when he’d decided Sam had done something, failed again or whatever, and Sam feels a sick twist in his stomach. No. Not this, too. Not from Dean.

Dean practically manhandles him out of the car and then strides to the motel room door like it’s a race. He sits down heavily on the bed near the door, which is always his, and he says, “These dreams. Pretty fun, huh?” like it’s a challenge.

“Dean, I don’t think right now is the—“

“Oh, yes. Now is the time. It’s a succubus, Sam.”

“Dean, what the fuck?”

“I know that look, Sam. Glazed eyes, sleeping like this… You look like you’re half dead. I know what it means. I worked this job—“

“You’re out of your mind, Dean. Excuse me for _having things on my mind_. Not like there’s any reason for that to happen.”

Dean glares at him, eyes staring diamond-hard into Sam.

“Okay. So, these dreams you’ve been having, where there’s all this smoke and fucking hellfire, I mean, obviously even if you were having dreams like that, that would just be about the fire in Palo Alto. Oh, wait, except the person you want to see most in the world is there and you have this mind-blowing sex. You can stop me anytime, ‘cause I know you’re not having dreams like that or anything.”

Sam wants to throw up or punch his brother, in no particular order, and maybe he would do both if he could move at all. Bile rises in his throat and he just stares back for a few seconds before a switch flips in his brain because he’s made a decision.

“I don’t care,” he says, flat and hard.

“What the fuck, Sam? What?”

“I said I don’t care. I never wanted to hunt again. I wanted Jess. I still want her. I want this. If I can’t have anything else, then I want this.”

It’s Dean’s turn to fall into a stunned silence, and when he doesn’t even bother with some kind of cocky look on his face Sam knows that hit hard. He’s not sure if he cares. He definitely doesn’t want to think about it. Mostly, he just wants to sleep. He can’t really breathe and his throat is tight like the air is full of smoke. His chest hurts like maybe someone’s sitting on it and he’s just going to cave in, but he doesn’t care, not really.

Dean clears his throat, finally decides he has to press the issue. “Yeah, well, we don’t always get what we want,” he says, and he’s trying for gruff and dismissive but his voice cracks. _Jesus._ Sam can almost hear Dean’s mind slowly performing a halt of operations in preparation for spontaneous combustion. _Sammy told me no. Does not compute. Abort, retry, fail?_

Sam wills himself to maintain apathy. He will not think about the way Dean’s gone pale, hands moving nervously over his jeans. Sam doesn’t remember doing it now, but he’s managed to lay himself down at some point during this little show of his brother’s—thank God, because he is so, so tired, and—surprise—Dean’s watching him lay there and just waiting.

“No. We don’t,” Sam says, finally, forcing the words through his aching throat. “But you can’t… exactly… force me… to let you… save me… or whatever.” Jesus. He’d forgotten what it was like when breathing was moved into the category of optional bodily functions.

“Sam—“

“I don’t— _want_ you to.”

“Fuck you. Fuck you for saying that. You don’t get to make that choice. It’s my job, Sam, and—what the fuck is that? You decide to give up, and I’m supposed to just—watch this?” He flung an arm out, sweeping it over Sam’s prone form. “Just. Fuck you. No.”

“So… I’m just supposed to let… _you_ … save me from a _sex demon_. You… don’t think I know… what you’re… going to have to… do to me?”

“Sam. It isn’t my f—“ Dean stopped. He ran a hand over his face, but he looked just as washed out and miserable when his features were visible again, and Sam had to look away. A new ache was building inside of him that had nothing to do with whatever the succubus. He couldn’t will it away. Dean.

Sam could protest. They both know it all started with Dean, his neediness choking out all the air around Sam in that last year. He didn’t talk, they didn’t say the word _Stanford_. Dean just took and took, and Sam never knew how to say no, not like that, not with Dean.

That last week, with the hot August air heavy around them and Dad channeling his anger into a hunt on his own, they woke, ate, slept, touching each other. By then, Sam couldn’t let go either.  
Three nights to go and Dean pressed him into the mattress. He pinned Sam’s arms over his head, holding both of his brother’s wrists down in one of his hands. Sam could have stopped him—it wasn’t like he wasn’t big enough, but with the pressure on his wrists like that and Dean’s eyes big and green over him all the fight left his body like Dean had just turned it off. That was all right, because it was Dean.

He closed his eyes and let his pull his legs up and settle his ankles on Dean’s shoulders. “Sammy,” Dean said, so soft that it barely sounded like Dean at all, but Sam’s body knew and already he was aching for this, for Dean.

His brother pushed into him hard and they both gasped. Sam pushed his hips forward, taking more, finally taking something for himself, and Dean’s answering moan sent pride and lust running through Sam like electricity.

They moved so fast, both fighting then, wanting more, just more of everything. Dean’s hands were in Sam’s hair now, fisted and pulling, and the jolts of pain only made Sam buck his hips harder, faster— _more, more. Dean. Please_ —and he knew it was going to be over too fast, knew from the harshness of Dean’s breathing that he was close and if Sam took what he wanted now, it would be over.

“Christ. Sammy. Sammy.” Dean’s voice started low and throaty but when he called for his brother one last time it was a shout, and he came, shuddering.

Dean slipped out and let himself tip forward onto Sam. He lay there panting for a few moments, his sweat mingling with his brother’s and creating a pleasant sting along Sam’s skin. Dean’s hands were still in his hair, stroking now, and Sam shivered. He knew he shouldn’t want this, shouldn’t, almost didn’t, but he’d kept his arms over his head all this time because Dean wanted them there, and now his cock was aching for release. He was reaching for one of his brother’s hands before he could stop himself and when he brought Dean’s hand down and felt fingers closing around him his vision nearly whited out completely.

Sam closed his eyes again, he had to, and he rode the waves of sensation, bucking up into his brother’s touch. Again. Again. Again.

When Sam came, there was a scream on his lips, and then someone on the other side of the wall, slamming it angrily. They just laughed, high and maybe a little hysterical, because now they could start counting hours, now it was that close to being over, and some motel sleazebag wanted them to feel worse than I’m never seeing my brother again and I’m so fucked up about it that I just had sex with him. And it was—Jesus, it was—

Dean stopped laughing, watched Sam like he was trying to memorize him. His fingers trailed over Sam’s cheek and then he spoke.

“I thought you were supposed to be mine, Sam.”

“I am. I am.” The words were out of Sam’s mouth in a rush and his stomach rolled a little at how true they were. “But I still—I still have to go.”

Dean’s hands formed fists and he pushed himself off of the bed. He had pulled all of his clothes back on and slammed his way out of the motel room before Sam had time to react.  
After that they didn’t speak, and Dean definitely didn’t touch him, and Sam left that motel in Kentucky two days later feeling like he was walking around with the guts leaking out of his chest. It wasn’t until he found Jess that Sam could breathe again.

“Sammy.” Dean’s voice breaks, pulling Sam back into the present and the pain and his chest caving in. “Sammy, come back. Come back.” Sam swims back up through everything, doesn’t know how he slipped away this time.

“Please, Sammy,” Dean’s saying, and Sam knows that his brother thinks he’s losing him, losing him all over again. “It isn’t her. It isn’t really her. Come back.”

No. The word forms on Sam’s lips but doesn’t make it through his tight throat. “No,” he says, trying again. “It was… it was Kentucky. With you.”

Dean jerks away like he’s been hit, and Sam shakes his head. “No fire. No fire. Wasn’t the—her—whatever. Just a…just a dream.” His words start to slur. He’s really—this thing, whatever, it’s really getting him now. “Think-maybe-she-knows-you’re-here-you-know…”

“Sam. You’ve got to fight this, man. You’ve got to—. Let me help you. Just. Please, Sam. You can’t let this bitch take you. It isn’t Jess. Jess wouldn’t do this.”

Sam’s crying and choking—damn it damn it damn it—because he knows Dean’s right, but she was there, it was as close as he’s been to Jess since Halloween, and it fucking hurts. He can’t really—talk or anything now. He can’t think about it. He just has to breathe, has to, because Dean’s freaking out and babbling and he can’t really leave Dean. He knows that because now he really might be doing it. He tries to focus on breathing, and what his brother’s saying.

“I know, Sam. I know you love her. But she’s gone. This isn’t her. I can’t lose you again, Sammy, I fucking can’t do it, not like this. Please. Please.”

Dean hasn’t ever been like this, not even that year before Stanford, not even in Kentucky, and Sam knows he’s going now, slipping away. He wills his body to move, his arms jerking weakly in the direction of his brother.

Yes. I will. He can’t make a sound, but Dean’s watching him so closely now that Sam knows he sees the words forming on his lips. 

Dean gathers him up into his arms. “Okay,” he says, “Okay. We can do this. I got you. You have to… you have to tell her to go, Sam. Tell her…” 

Sam’s tears start up again. It’s not Jess, he knows that, but it could be. It’s so close to being Jess, it hurts like he’s ripping in two. He remembers, though, seeing not-Jess with that look on her face, that hungry, almost aching look, and he remembers how he never wants to see that again. Not for him, not for anybody. Get the fuck away from me, he thinks. I don’t want you. I’m not yours anymore. I’m not yours.

There’s a flash of red, and the succubus is there, it’s in the room, it’s fucking corporeal. It’s still wearing Jess, and it’s corporeal, and Jess has been dead, and oh, fucking God. Sam is going to throw up, and he can’t, he can’t breathe. He’s going to throw up and fucking aspirate on his own vomit and—

“Don’t look, Sammy, don’t.” 

Then Dean’s up and running for the succubus. Sam knows he has to go, but he doesn’t know what’s going to happen now, without his brother here. He hears Dean’s fist connect with the succubus, connect with the flesh of Jess’ corpse, and the weight on his chest eases a little. So he just breathes. He waits.

You gave yourself to me, Sam Winchester, the thing thinks at him even as his brother is beating its stolen physical form to a pulp. Then Sam realizes that’s all he can hear, that the thing isn’t even fighting back. This is part of the show. This is Sam’s punishment. You said you were mine.

Not yours. Not yours. I’m not. Its hold on him is falling away in waves and he pushes himself free of it as much as he can. Not yours. I won’t let you have me. Not now.

It growls at him, and a pulse of energy pushes into him from across the room. His skin burns with it. Then you will be your brother’s. You will be a sinner, Sam Winchester, son of demons. You will burn in our hellfire. Sam feels an impossible surge of wanting that rips through him, leaves him breathless, and then he knows the thing is gone. Jessica’s body falls to the floor, black smoke pouring out of her, and Sam can breathe, he can move. He can’t make it far, though, because fuck, he was about five seconds from dead half an hour ago and you don’t just walk that off. He manages to roll over on his side, because now he is definitely going to puke. He tries to lean down over the side of the bed, but gravity is stronger than his blasted muscles right now and he falls to the floor, already retching. 

Dean is at his side in the next moment, but when he puts a hand out to Sam he realizes what he’s got all over him, and they’ve had their share of fucked up hunts but he is not going to get Sam’s dead girlfriend all over him so he sprints for the bathroom. Sam starts heaving all over again because now he can smell—that—just that much better. God, he hates hunting.

Dean comes back with his hands scrubbed red and raw. He pulls Sam up off of the floor, back onto the bed. “I…I gotta… I’ll take care of it,” he says, “Stay here?” His voice is raw too, and a little thick. “You okay for me to leave? Sammy?” 

Moving in slow motion, Sam finally nods. “M’okay. Can breathe now. Just…fucking…”

“Tired,” Dean says. “Okay. We gotta get out of here soon, I mean, this is some fucked up shit. They’re gonna… they knew where we were staying…”

“Yeah…we…gotta go.” 

“But I’ll… I mean, I’ll take care of this first, Sammy, I promise.” Like he can take care of Sam’s girlfriend being dead, with a bonus side order of being brought across the country by the forces of hell.

But Sam knows what he’s trying to say, and just. He’s too tired. It isn’t Dean’s fault. He closes his eyes, and Dean takes a moment to rub his back like he always did when they were kids and he’d had a nightmare and needed to get back to sleep. Sam’s dimly aware of the spike of longing that moves through him when Dean does it, and he could be upset or pissed off or even tell Dean to wait, that Sam needs him, needs him to— But he hasn’t got the energy. He slips back down into sleep, but this time he knows it’s safe, and he doesn’t dream.

*~*~*

They drive out of Lake Manitoc like bats out of hell. Part of it is the inevitable fucking wreck of the motel room, because there’s only so much you can do for damage control in a situation like that, but Sam knows that at least half of it is that Dean couldn’t finish the case, and this one, Dean really, really cared about. For the first few days, Sam wants to disappear. He doesn’t know how Dean can expect not to blame him, or even if Dean’s going to try not to.

There’s also the matter of that last parting gift from the fucking sex demon.

It actually hasn’t changed that much, what she did. It’s only that, for a little while Sam had Jess and he could pretend that he was normal—didn’t ache inside with love all twisted around the wrong way, keeping his insides churning. And Sam liked it, even if it was a lie. Sam’s used to lies. He lives by them. So maybe the worst of this is how he can’t lie anymore, not about Dean.

They’re five days out of Wisconsin when Sam feels like maybe—maybe—. He brushes his brother’s hand where it rests on the shifter, and Dean breathes in hard, straightens up, so that Sam thinks—shit—he’s fucked it up and Dean’s going to shut down on him, call him sick. It’s been so long, maybe he just doesn’t… But Dean takes the next exit, about a quarter mile from one of those signs that says LODGING FOOD GAS and Sam didn’t actually realize how he’d timed it, but now he’s happy, he can’t help himself.

They’ve barely shut the room door when Dean is on him, kissing and biting his lips raw, hands down to the button of Sam’s fly. “Don’t you. Ever. Fucking. Do that to me. Again. You hear me, Sam? Don’t you ever—fucking—“

Sam takes Dean’s face in his hands and pushes it away just a little so he can catch his brother’s gaze. “Won’t,” he says, “I won’t, Dean. I—“

He’s crying again, Jesus, he didn’t mean for it to be like this. He looks into his brother’s eyes, tries to show him how fucking sorry he is for this, he just wants it to be over.

Dean shakes his head a little and guides him over to the bed. “Okay. Sammy. It’s okay. Just us.”

Sam wraps his arms around Dean and holds on for dear life, muffling the worst of it against his brother’s shoulder. It goes on and on, until Sam is aching with it. Dean just sits there, hands stroking through Sam’s hair, and waits. Finally:

“She’s gone. Dean, she—she’s gone.”

Dean just nods, keeps his hands on Sam, holding him steady. It’s all right, because this time maybe Sam will blow apart.

They sit there until the light starts to fade around them. Sam unwinds himself from around Dean and curls up on his side on the bed before reaching to pull Dean down with him.

“Sammy?” Dean hesitates, but Sam tugs a little harder on his arm and he obliges.

Sam presses up against Dean as close as he can get, but they just lie there quietly in the dark for a while. Sam is the first to speak again. “Dean. I—I’m sorry. I just—“

“No. You don’t apologize, don’t you apologize for what that bitch did. Don’t you apologize for having Jess.”

It’s the last part that stuns Sam. That wasn’t what he had been doing, not really, but maybe he thought he should, someday.

“She got you back to me in one piece, Sam. I—“

That’s when Sam realizes the fire is still weighing on his brother, remembers Dean pulling him out of it, how Dean wasn’t even supposed to be there, and if he hadn’t been—

There’s a lump in his throat again and he pulls Dean tighter against him. “Yeah. Yeah, she— Yeah.”

They’re quiet again, both just holding on tight, and Sam starts to drift, but he doesn’t let himself until he says something else.

“’M not leaving again, Dean. Promise you. I’m yours.”

Dean might start to shake a little in Sam’s arms, but it’s all right, Sam just holds on tight, places a soft kiss in the hollow of Dean’s neck, and thinks it helps.

You will be your brother’s, the succubus had said. But really, she hadn’t changed anything at all. It had always been that way. Sam smiles for what feels like the first time since November second. His lips almost don’t know what to do with it, but it feels good, and Sam falls asleep with his brother in his arms, and feeling safe.


End file.
